Conventionally, when an individual wishes to improve his or her health or risk of obesity, it is recommended that the individual make changes to his or her diet. There exist a number of systems which can support a user who is on a diet to reach a weight loss target, such as disclosed in Japanese patent document JP 2003-203123 A and Japanese patent document JP 2009-265791 A. It is known that this type of goal directed weight loss can be particularly useful for individuals who have, or are at risk of developing, diabetes, as it has been found that a reduction of 7% of a person's body weight over an approximately six month (26 week) period can allow an individual who has or is at, risk of diabetes to reduce his or her symptoms or risk level. See, e.g., The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP): Description of lifestyle intervention, 25 Diabetes Care 2165-2171 (December 2002) (hereinafter “DPP”).
While there are weight management systems in the prior art, these systems are generally deficient in one way or another. For example, the weight management systems of Japanese patent document JP 2003-203123 A and Japanese patent document JP 2009-265791 A fail to provide ongoing user support functions such as checking the status of a user's progression to a weight loss goal. Additionally, currently used technology does not provide an effective way to tailor recommendations, particularly exercise recommendations, to users without involving a skilled professional who can personally create a recommendation for a user or requiring complicated and often unreliable determinations made on a user by user basis. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved weight management system, and, in particular for a weight management system which can tailor recommendations in a manner which is more effective than has heretofore been available, which can provide ongoing user support functions such as checking the status of a user to a weight loss goal, or both.